'My name is Rahimol, I am Rohingya'

Rahimol. - Katie Arnold/al-Jazeera photo

(Ubah saiz teks)

COX'S BAZAR - BANGLADESH. Rahimol, 22, comes from the village of Foira, Rakhine State, Myanmar, which he fled a few weeks ago.

Before arriving here, he was a student at the local religious school who enjoyed his religious studies. Sometimes he would teach the younger children too, as most of the people he lived with were uneducated.

He aims to become a teacher and was very happy in his village of Foira, until the military came along.

"It was 3am when the military started firing their guns at our village and burning down our houses. We could not leave the house because if they saw us they would shoot, so we hid inside. Eventually, they reached our house and started firing their guns through the window, a bullet hit my knee. Many people from our village died that night. I personally saw three neighbours killed.

"My father and brother took me to a hospital for medical treatment but the hospital wouldn't accept me because of the fighting, so my relatives carried me to Bangladesh. They carried me through the mountains in order to avoid the military," said Rahimol.

It was a very long and painful trip and his wound became severely infected. His family could only carry him, they left everything else behind.

They reached safety in Bangladesh and received some medical help from MSF (Doctors Without Borders, which is often known by its French initials), but they have no shelter and no future.

"We will only have a future if there is peace at home. It is so sad what is unfolding in front of our eyes. We want to go home and we want peace. But I believe the world is watching our crisis and that they are trying to help us,"he said.

Nearly 300,000 Rohingya, mainly women and children, have fled to Bangladesh in the recent weeks as a result of indiscriminate violence against civilian populations carried out by the Myanmar army.

The UN and other human rights organisations have warned that the mass exodus following killings, rapes, and burned villages are signs of "ethnic cleansing", pleading for the international community to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to end the violence. – al-Jazeera

COX'S BAZAR - Elephants trampled to death two Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh on Monday when they rampaged through a settlement where the refugees were taking shelter after fleeing a military offensive in neighbouring Myanmar.

COX'S BAZAR - BANGLADESH. Aid agencies have to step up operations "massively" in response to the arrival in Bangladesh of about 400,000 refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar, and the amount of money needed to help them has risen sharply, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday.

COX'S BAZAR - BANGLADESH. The United Nations has appealed for aid to deal with a humanitarian crisis unfolding in southern Bangladesh after the number of Muslim Rohingya fleeing Myanmar neared 300,000, just two weeks after violence erupted there.